There were booths for clothing and textiles—one snaggle-toothed rat clerk seemed especially proud of a large triangle of faded blue fabric, inscribed with a sweep of bold white squiggles: DODGERS 1955.
“It’s a commemorative pennant,” the clerk boasted to Hopper. “Legend has it that was the year dem bums won the series!”
But when Hopper looked thoroughly puzzled, the merchant snorted. He waved Hopper away in disgust, then carefully folded the precious strip of material and moved on to other business.
“Pennant?” Hopper asked Zucker.
“Forget it, kid. It’s a human thing.”
As they walked on, Zucker pointed out important places like the school, the infirmary, and the armory.
“And over there’s the fire station,” he said, motioning to a tall red canister with a chrome nozzle attached to a black tube. Hopper recalled that Keep had one just like it mounted on the wall behind the counter.
Zucker gave an exaggerated sniff in the direction of his armpit. “I suppose I should swing by there later and have them hose me down,” he teased. “Ya know, as kind of a ‘Welcome to Atlantia’ gesture just fer you.”
Hopper’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “I’m sorry if I insulted you,” he mumbled.
“Ah, no need to apologize, kid. I don’t have anything against bein’ clean. A nice long bubble bath every now and then never killed anybody.” He gave Hopper a meaningful look. “Remember that.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll see.” Zucker let out a booming laugh, which caught the attention of a female rat selling coffee beans and sugar cubes from a window cut into an overturned cardboard cup. She smiled invitingly at Zucker, but if he noticed her interest, he didn’t mention it to Hopper.
“Atlantia has it all, kid,” Zucker announced.
Surprisingly this statement was not made with any great expression of pride; in fact, to Hopper, it sounded forced, as though perhaps Zucker wasn’t completely thrilled to be a part of life inside the walled city.
“And there . . . ,” Zucker continued, pointing ahead a little ways, “. . . is the palace.”
Hopper stopped dead in his tracks.
This “palace,” as Zucker called it, was truly the most incredible structure in all of Atlantia. Tall and narrow in some places, lower to the ground and broad in others; shimmering and transparent in one section, splashed with opaque color in another. There were rounded sections and octagonal ones; scrollwork balconies; wide stone terraces; pillars and alcoves and staircases that curved around corners and disappeared. It was an architectural masterpiece that was somehow both whimsical and functional at once.
But to Hopper’s great distress, the soaring entryway through which they would soon be passing was guarded by not one but two of those abominable cats. They were not nearly as gruesome as Cyclops, but they were no less intimidating. They, too, had teeth like razors and glowing yellow eyes that tilted upward wickedly. Their impeccable posture made them seem miles taller than Zucker, and they wore fussy dress uniforms fashioned from shiny cloth and satin ribbon, which were in stark contrast to the heavy weaponry they wore belted around their midsections.
As Hopper and Zucker drew nearer to the two feline soldiers, Hopper again sensed the power of instinct stirring within him; intuitively he shuffled ever so slightly closer to Zucker’s side, and without even realizing, reached up to slip his paw into Zucker’s—which, as if by magic, was already open and waiting, ready to accept the trembling paw that grasped for it. Suddenly the glimmer of a memory flashed in Hopper’s mind.
He was newly born, snuggled beside his mother’s warmth, reveling in the soothing flutter of her heart. But there was something else . . . another heartbeat, just as steady, just as close. In the memory Baby Hopper lifted his tiny head and saw, through the haze of his infant vision, a face—handsome and proud; a loving smile.
The image vanished as quickly as it had come, and Hopper was once again aware of the immense structure looming before him.
“Who lives here?” he asked in an awed whisper.
In reply Zucker gave a heavy sigh. His expression clouded briefly with an expression that may have been guilt. Or shame.
“I do, kid,” he muttered. “I do.”
chapter ten
THE PALACE ENTRY OPENED into a grand foyer that was nearly as busy as the city.
Zucker immediately nodded to a pretty young rat in a maid’s uniform; she seemed flustered but pleased that he had chosen her as she scurried over and dipped a dainty curtsy.
“Yes, my lord Zucker, sir?”
Hopper’s eyes widened. Lord Zucker? Sir? Was she kidding?
Zucker cleared his throat, uncomfortable with such a formal greeting. “I’d appreciate it if you’d escort my little friend here to the—” He eyed Hopper, then leaned close to the maid to finish his request in a whisper.
Hopper could not hear the destination. But it caused the maid to smile. “Yes, of course, sir.”
Then she snapped her fingers, and two burly rats wearing palace livery materialized at Hopper’s side. The maid nodded and before Hopper knew what was happening, he was caught in their viselike clutches.
Panic surged in him. He was captured! And at Zucker’s command. The sting of betrayal was nearly too much to bear.
Strangely, though, Zucker was grinning. “Remember what I told ya, kid. It won’t kill ya.”
With that cryptic promise ringing in his ears, Hopper was dragged behind the maid across the grand foyer and up a sweeping staircase, kicking, shouting, and squirming the entire way.
The first staircase led to a second, then a third. The fourth was little more than a ladder fashioned of fraying twine.
Hopper relaxed slightly when he realized they were heading upstairs rather than down, because in his imaginings the worst kind of torture would be found hidden away in a deep, dark, dank place. But as they climbed higher and higher, he began to wonder if perhaps their plan was to hurl him from the rooftop.
“Tell me, how did someone so tiny get covered in so much filth?” the maid asked, her voice rippling with gentle laughter.
The sweetness of her tone surprised Hopper. “Well, um . . . I fell into a dirty river, and then down a waterfall, and I landed in muck. And then I ran for a long time and hid inside a broken rock, where it was pretty dusty.” He glanced down at his fur, which had been so soft and pristine just that morning. Now it was stiff and caked with grime. A hot flash of embarrassment burned in his cheeks over his appearance, which was actually kind of silly, considering he was either about to be tortured to death or flung from the roof.
“I’m sorry that you had such a terrible day.” The maid gave him a smile so kind and sincere that it made his heart ache a little. His mother had often smiled at him like that. “I’m Marcy, by the way.”
“Hopper,” he squeaked.
And then he saw the water.
All things considered, he would have preferred to be flung from the roof.
The rope ladder had deposited them on the rim of a large white basin that was mounted to a wall that rose even higher than the great outer wall of Atlantia. The basin was filled with water, and had two silver spigots from which spilled a seemingly infinite stream of water, clear and clean.
And cold.
Very cold.
When the rat guards dropped Hopper into the icy pool, his entire little body erupted in goose bumps.
“Hey!” he sputtered through chattering teeth. “Are you trying to f-f-freeze me to death?”
“Just making you presentable for the emperor,” the maid explained. She nodded to the guards, who lugged over a large white block of some fresh-scented substance. A word Hopper couldn’t read was carved into the surface: IVORY. When they slid the block into the pool, it floated.
As the stream of water splashed into the chilly water around the IVORY cake, a froth of bubbles filled the pool. Hopper was delighted to find that they felt lovely and smelled even better. As his body adjusted to the water
temperature, he found he was actually enjoying himself. He closed his eyes and splashed the sudsy water on his face, feeling the thick layer of dirt rinsing away. After a while one of the guards waded into the pool to scrub his back with a stiff brush and lather the fur on top of his head.
“What happened to your ear?” the guard asked.
“Well . . . um . . .” Hopper eyed the soldier and knew that admitting the truth (“My sister bit me!”) would make him a laughingstock. “Sword fight,” he lied.
“Best have Marcy patch it up for you.” Then the guard ducked Hopper under the surface to rinse.
Marcy brought him a soft, clean towel, patted him dry, and led him back down the twine ladder to a room furnished with plush chairs. She used a long strip of filmy white cloth to bandage his injured ear. Unfortunately, in order to sufficiently cover the wound, she had to arrange the cloth so that it was wrapped around the whole right side of his face, including his eye. Hopper wasn’t thrilled about only having the use of his left one, but then it would only be temporary, and the bandage did go a long way toward stopping the throbbing in his torn ear.
When Marcy finished tending the wound, she waited quietly in the corner while another rat appeared to trim Hopper’s claws; still another arrived to comb out his whiskers.
“What’s with the bandage, kid?”
Hopper looked up to see Zucker leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He, too, was freshly bathed, and had changed out of his ragged leather tunic into an indigo-colored suede jerkin with a high ruffled neck and copper buttons. A loose-fitting chain-link belt encircled his waist. While Hopper admired Zucker’s new outfit, Zucker was looking at Hopper’s bandage with interest.
“Let me guess—that’s your impersonation of Clops the one-eyed imbecile cat?”
Hopper shook his head, careful not to loosen the gauzy dressing. “I hurt my ear upland. But it’s okay now. Marcy wrapped it for me.”
Zucker sent an appreciative grin in Marcy’s direction.
“I told ya a bubble bath wouldn’t kill ya, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” Hopper said, and smiled. “It was wonderful! Thank you for arranging it.”
Zucker shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice. I’m going to petition to have you take up residence here at the palace, but I can’t do that without getting permission from old Titus. And he never would have agreed to meet you if you were stinking like a cesspool.”
“Well, I guess you can’t blame old Titus for that,” reasoned Hopper. Then he frowned. “Uh, exactly who is old Titus?”
“Why, he’s our fearless leader,” gushed Zucker in a voice filled with false reverence. “He’s the exalted one. Emperor of all the Romanus.” The rat paused, then sighed. “He’s also my old man.”
Hopper didn’t understand. “Your what?”
Zucker rolled his eyes. “He’s my father, kid.”
“Oh. Your father.” Hopper cocked his head. “What’s a . . . father?”
Zucker’s ears shot upward, curious. “You don’t know what a father is?”
“I grew up in a cage,” Hopper reminded him. “I don’t know much.”
Zucker furrowed his brow and scratched his chin, struggling to think of a way to explain. “I guess a father is like . . . well, he’s like a mother. You do know what a mother is, don’tcha?”
Hopper felt a lump form in his throat. “Yes.”
“All right . . . well . . . then I guess you could say that a father is kind of like a mother, only instead of a she, he’s a he. Ya know . . . the male of the species. A father is where you came from.”
Where I came from. Hopper closed his eyes, and again the hazy memory flashed in his mind—that second warmth, that second soothing heartbeat. Deep inside him his instincts were running amok—he just couldn’t make sense of what they were telling him.
“I don’t think I have a father,” he said, shaking his head.
Zucker laughed. “Everybody has a father, kid. Trust me on this one.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“Why do you want me to live here?” he asked.
Zucker scratched his ear thoughtfully. “Well, I feel kind of responsible for you, having saved your life and all. And since I don’t think you’d last five minutes out there alone in the tunnels, I was going to request that you be allowed to stay here.” He patted Hopper on the back. “Plus, I always wanted a sidekick.”
Hopper wasn’t sure what a sidekick was, but he liked the sound of it. He adjusted his oversize bandage, then popped off the chair and began to cross the room. It took a moment for the connection to sink in, but when it did, his mouth dropped open in shock.
“So if the Emperor of Romanus is your father . . . what does that make you?”
Zucker let out a long rush of breath. “Very unhappy,” he muttered. “That’s what.”
The throne room was located on the opposite end of the palace. Along the way Hopper and Zucker passed kitchens and dining rooms and drawing rooms and libraries. They passed rooms filled with wall-size maps, flags, and other military trappings where stern-faced rats in soldier’s uniforms sauntered about, their weapons ever at the ready.
Maids and valets rushed about the palace, ushering ordinary citizens who’d come to plead with the emperor for favors or forgiveness. There were merchants from the marketplace delivering necessities and provisions of all sorts.
But Hopper noticed that all these visitors had one tendency in common: everyone who passed Zucker either curtsied or bowed deeply in a gesture of respect for the illustrious son of their royal sovereign.
“Are you the emperor in training or something like that?” he asked as they strode through the opulent halls and gilt corridors.
“The term is ‘prince,’ kid. But I prefer to think of myself as more of a ‘knight errant.’ ” Zucker flashed his crooked grin. “Emphasis on the ‘errant,’ of course.”
Hopper didn’t get it. They walked a little farther, and a guard offered a very formal greeting to Zucker. Hopper cleared his throat and whispered to the rat, “Should I be calling you ‘Prince’?”
“What’s the matter with ‘Zucker’?”
“I’m being serious.”
Zucker stopped walking and gave Hopper an impatient frown. “Listen, kid, my list of titles is bigger than you are, but if you insist on going the formal route, here are your choices. You can call me ‘Prince Zucker of Romanus’ or ‘Imperial Highness, Royal Monarch of Atlantia.’ I’ll also answer to ‘Your Grace,’ ‘Your Majesty,’ and occasionally ‘Your Excellency,’ but my personal favorite title is the one that was given to me by an old friend—he used to call me ‘The Zuck-meister!’ So go ahead, kid. Pick a title, any title.”
Hopper bristled at Zucker’s aggression—after all, it was only a simple question. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“I’m not mad!” Zucker snapped, then collected himself and sighed. “Look, I’ve never been all that good at the whole royalty thing, ya know? For lots of reasons.” Zucker crouched down so they were eye to eye. “Whaddya say we just keep things status quo, huh? You can call me ‘Zucker,’ and I’ll call you . . .” The rat prince frowned. “Uh, what’s your name again?”
“It’s Hopper.” Hopper lifted his chin. “I’m Hopper.”
“Yeah, right. Hopper. Well, you can call me ‘Zucker’ and I’ll just keep on callin’ you ‘kid.’ That way everybody’s happy, and you don’t have to concern yourself with things like titles or rankings, or remembering to bow in my presence.”
“I’m supposed to bow in your presence?”
“Technically, yes,” Zucker replied. “But frankly, it drives me crazy. So please don’t. Now, let’s go meet the emperor.”
And they were off.
Zucker smoothed his suede jerkin as they approached the throne room. “You wait out here for a minute,” he said. “I’ll go in first and get the official stuff out of the way, and then you ca
n come in and have an audience with the big guy.”
“All right.”
Hopper watched Zucker push open the heavy door and amble across the gleaming floor. From where he stood, peering around the doorframe, Hopper could see the throne and the rat who sat upon it.
Titus, Emperor of the Romanus. Everything about him was formidable.
If Zucker was big, then Titus was gargantuan.
If Zucker was a tad cocky, then Titus was downright arrogant.
And if Zucker was handsome and dashing and roguishly charming, then Titus was . . . well, none of those things, really.
“A good day to you, Prince Zucker of Romanus.”
Zucker rolled his eyes. “Would it kill you to call me ‘son’?” he grumbled under his breath. “Just once?”
“Speak up, Your Grace,” the emperor scolded. “I cannot hear you.”
“I said it’s an honor to be in your exalted company, Your Highness.”
“What news? Does the rebel Firren continue to raid our tunnels?”
“I have seen no proof of that,” Zucker reported in a level voice.
Listening from the doorway, Hopper was confused. They had seen Firren. They’d hidden from her, in fact. Zucker was lying to his father.
The emperor, too, seemed surprised by Zucker’s reply. “Three of our scouts have gone missing in less than a fortnight,” he countered.
“Well, that is distressing to be sure, sire, but I’m pretty certain Firren and her Rangers are not to blame. Maybe your scouts got flattened by one of the metal monsters. Or perhaps they just went AWOL.” Zucker fixed his father with a contemptuous look. “My money’s on desertion.”
The emperor ignored Zucker’s baiting and mulled over the issue. “I suppose I shall have to put a bounty on Firren’s head,” he concluded.
Zucker gritted his teeth but said nothing.
“What more?”
“That’s about it.”
“Is it?” Titus leaned forward. “I believe Firren’s ongoing presence is cause for great concern. What if she gets it into her head to approach the Mūs about forming an alliance?” His eyes glittered with intensity. “Such a thing nearly occurred once before, as you well know.”